Page 26 of Fight Or Flight

Adam laughed. “Brilliant. She has nicknames.”

Natalie unleashed a smile that transformed her face and made Ethan’s heart lodge in his throat. “I wish I could take credit, but it was all Amy.”

Ethan summoned all his strength to pull his gaze from Natalie’s smile and look at Amy. She’d shrunk back like a week-old flower. She hated confrontation. “You used to call her Lamentable Lindsay?”

She shrugged, then said to no one, or everyone, “Long story.”

Ethan worried there was more history between Amy and Lindsay than he’d known. They were in the same grade through school, and Amy was always a victim of bullies. But he hadn’t considered that he might have invited one of them into their family circle.

The thought made him sick.

“Let’s go get that drink,” Natalie said, breaking Amy’s discomfort. She looped her arm through Amy’s and brushed past Ethan and Adam to get to the bar.

Adam watched over his shoulder as they passed, and as soon as they were out of earshot, leaned toward Ethan. “I like her.”

“Go find Mrs. P.”

“Ms.And I don’t mean it like that. Look . . .” He jerked his chin toward the door just as Derek and Lindsay walked out. “All we had to do was sic the hot homeless girl on them.”

Ethan smiled. “She doesn’t really hold back, eh?”

“She’s fucking terrifying,” he said with a grin. “I heard Robert was like that. Shot straight from the hip, you know.” He stopped, assessed Ethan. “She seemed pretty into you.”

Ethan turned to his friend’s grinning face. He meant well, but was clearly way off base.

Adam rolled his eyes. “They’re coming back. I’m gonna go find Ms. P.”

He left just as they came back. A second later, Jaclyn came over.

“Ames, I need you,” she said, taking Amy’s hand.

Amy looked at Ethan and Natalie. “Please be nice to each other,” she said, then took off arm in arm with Jaclyn.

Suddenly, Ethan and Natalie were alone.

Good.

He had about a thousand questions. Where to begin? Lindsay or the inheritance?

“Would you like to dance?” she asked.

Ethan’s brain stopped working. Just went completely blank. He looked at her as she watched him with her terrifying, albeit kinder, stare, waiting for an answer.

“Uh,” he said, silently screaming at himself for being such a clod.

“Careful. Amy asked you to be nice,” she said in a softer voice than he thought she was capable of.

Ethan didn’t really want to dance with her—she was too . . . something. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. But he wanted to sort out this Lindsay and Amy thing, and she seemed to have answers. He also wanted to find out what she and Chelsea were doing with the property.

“Okay.”

The band had switched to a slow dance. Ethan led Natalie to the centre of the dance floor, under the lights. He clasped her hand in his, then rested his other hand on the small of her back, where her soft bare skin reached fabric. She moved closer and started moving with him to the slow beat of the song. From the corner of his eye, he could see more couples joining them on the dance floor, but he couldn’t move his eyes off of her face or stop his brain from wondering what the smell of her perfume was.

Vanilla? Coconut? Some kind of sweet-smelling fruit?

“Who is that dancing with Adam?” she asked, her voice a whisper. “She looks familiar.”

Ethan looked over at his friend. When he located him, Adam wagged his eyebrows at him.

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